yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mabru2001:
I get around 50C with my TYLT in portrait orientation and started to placing it in landscape my temps drop to mid 30s. My guess is that with the device have more airflow behind it, it stays cooler.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NCguy:
50C is much hotter than I'm seeing in portrait. Is that with Daydream on?
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mabru2001:
No daydream, i switched it back to portrait directly from landscape without taking it off the pad, and the temps stayed in the 30s, weird.... ill have to try it again after it dies down again.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NCguy:
For the last few days I'm really seeing Daydream making a substantial difference. I'm really surprised that it only has this effect on a Qi device and not a standard USB charger.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ageedoy:
Woke up today and reached for my phone sitting on the Tylt Vu. It was running way hot and I noticed the battery was only at 78% despite being on the charger all nite. The phone proceeds to auto-shutdown. I let it cool down for a while and powered it on. It looks like it reached 100% and then somehow got into a bad state and discharged down to 78% by the time I woke up.

I've been using the Tylt for a week or two and this is the first time this has happened. Before that I was using the DT-900 with no issues. I'm on 4.4.2 and I'm not using Daydream.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NCguy:
I've had my 2 tylts since the first week of N5 shipping. I had a hot charge the first week and not since. So far only heard of one other person that's actually had it happen twice.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ixian:
I was repeatedly getting overheating warnings on my Tylt since I started using it with my N5 last week - usually around 30-45 minutes in.

I disabled Daydream and I haven't seen it pop back up yet today; the phone is also noticeably less warm. I was using Dashclock for my Daydream - anyone else? Wonder if it's that widget or Daydream in general.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NCguy:
No, the daydreams, some worse than others, will raise the charging temp to around 110 F but I never saw it cause the phone to heat up much higher than that.

I've had true overheat now twice, the latest was last week. The phone was st 132 F and had stopped charging at 70%. 132 F is down right scary and if I hadn't pulled it off when I did there is no telling how hot it would have gotten. BTW, this was with no daydream on at all.

In the short run I made a tasker script that should ring my phone on overheating but with tasker you can only test for a generic battery "overheat" condition and not for a specific temperature. So it's almost too late to be useful but at least you probably can prevent a fire.

Unless tylt comes up with a fix, which I am now not optimistic, I now plan to replace both my tylts with safer chargers. Too bad, the tylts were expensive and I haven't seen anything else I like nearly as well. I may ask tylt for a refund considering they are no longer practical for me to use.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NCguy:
update: tylt just informed me that they have identified the cause of the overheating problem and will soon have a fix. This is fantastic news! There is no better Qi charger out there.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] hotleadsingerguy:
That may be the issue, but what about the other people that don't have any issues at all? My phone screen will stay on unless I turn it off manually or I take it off the charger...and I've never had an issue.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NCguy:
i don't know how long you've had it but I expect it will eventually happen. I've had mine since the N5 was released and I just had the 2nd occurrence last week. It's very random but it will sneek up and bite you in the butt. I now have tasker warn me by ringing the phone on battery overheating.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] EmperorX:
Did they elaborate what the cause was? I would have purchased 2-3 of these (especially with those recent sales, but even before hand) if I weren't terrified of the sporadic reports of overheating N5's. I am assuming they will be giving hardware replacements / recall existing devices?
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Mr. Sprinkles:
The last two times mine over heated, the hottest spots were near the upper metal discs and the vibrator in the back cover. I think it's heating the steel parts in the back cover. Maybe the transmitter is misidentifying where the receiver actually is and directing energy to the upper coil when it should be going to the middle coil, this would explain the upper part of the phone getting so freaking hot.

Adding to the problem, foreign object detection sucks or is non existent on the VU. A good QI charger should be able to detect when metal is on the pad sucking up energy and throw an error. Not the VU though. I put a pair of tweezers on the pad (don't try this at home) and placed my phone on top, and it started charging! The tweezers got extremely hot and the VU saw no problem. By comparison, when I did this to my cheap Chinese charger, it saw a problem but kept attempting to charge in short bursts. This caused the tweezers to get uncomfortably warm, but not to the level the VU did. Good to know the $18 charger is slightly safer than the $70 one...
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NCguy:
Other than saying that they have identified the problem and a fix was forthcoming they haven't elaborated yet on replacement details . But I assumed it was implied. They've been very good to work with so far.

They also did not elaborate on the specific cause that they identified. I'm assuming with all the units out there they have to be careful. I'm also assuming that it may not affect anything other than N5's at this point.

---------- Post added at 09:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:30 PM ----------

is your impression that when it overheats that the temp will keep on rising until you pull it off or will it max out? What was your battery temp?
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Mr. Sprinkles:
Not sure what my battery temp was, but the back cover measured a little over 130F with my infrared thermometer. The battery probably wasn't far behind.

I'm no rocket surgeon, but I imagine you can only heat a piece of metal so much with 5 watts (or whatever it is) of power. Around 130F might be where it tops out.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] markdapimp:
Did this with my 21$ Charger i got off ebay, im i don't have the problems you're having
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NCguy:
congrats pimp, you should buy a $50 phone off ebay to go with it.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] markdapimp:
or buy another nexus 5 :) so i can pimp the nutella and the cream :)
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wideasleep1:
My N5 was hot and not fully charged once, but otherwise my N4 and N5 have charged cool and perfectly otherwise. Very happy with Tylt.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NCguy:
I think the N5 may be the only one that (very) randomly overheats with the tylt. I've never seen any other reports.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ixian:
I think Mr. Sprinkles hit it on the head - foreign object detection doesn't appear to work well and the N5 is the only Qi-compatible phone I know of that has metal disks inside the back (ironically enough, for charger alignment using Google's own Qi pad). Add to it the fact that the Tylt VU has 3 coils compared to most chargers 1 and is using a 1A charger compared to 500mA and you have the situation we are in now. Of course, those features are why most people love the VU, because it charges phones faster and it's pretty hard to mis-align the coils so here's hoping they fix it.

I'd bet that all N5's get hotter than they should on the VU and the difference is whether certain apps (Daydream, etc) or conditions (warm room, etc) push it over the edge in to overheating.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NCguy:
So the battery heat is from transfer as opposed to direct charge current? I suspect that isn't nearly as hard on the battery or perhaps hardly bad at all?
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ixian:
I don't know for sure, it's just a theory. It seems like an awful coincidence that the area of the N5 that gets super-hot sometimes is where the metal disks are. Qi chargers are supposed to be good at varying rates to overcome that and rejecting "foreign" objects but the VU doesn't do a good job even detecting external metal and with the disks built in to the phone it's probably worse.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] hotleadsingerguy:
I've had it since the day it released (paid for overnight shipping) and have used wireless charging ever since. It charges most of the day at work, charges overnight every night, and sometimes on my desk at home in the early-evening. I've used nothing but wireless charging since launch
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NCguy:
I have 2 tylts and use it equally as much. I've had 2 incidents in the same amount of time. Two is statistically a very low number over that time period. So I would say you are definitely not in the clear. Unfortunately, I'll bet you're due so I wouldn't get too complacent. Sorry for the ill-fated projection but almost every N5 user with a tylt has reported one or two overheating incidents.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ixian:
Is your screen on (Daydream, third party clock, launcher option, etc) at all while you are charging? If my N5 is off while charging on my Tylt it gets warmer than it should (according to Better Battery, which tracks temps on a graph) but not enough to trip off the overheat warning and stop charging.

However if I turn on Daydream - regular or dim screen, doesn't matter - I can pretty easily get it to do it.

Also do you charge in portrait or landscape? In landscape temps generally stay pretty normal.

My theory, earlier expressed - and it is just a theory - is that due to having both higher power output (1A) and 3 coils instead of the 1 normally found in Qi chargers more heat gets absorbed by the small metal disks inside the N5 (there are 4, used to align with the magnets on the OEM Google charger) and thus over time heat builds up. A number of factors probably play in to this, including if the screen is on (thus contributing to overall heat), if all 4 disks are in contact with the coils, if your phone is in a case, if your environment is warm (72f "room temperature" does it for me, it doesn't have to be that hot), etc.

This, and the fact that neither the N5 nor VU have been out that long, reducing the sample size, probably explains why some folks don't see the problem, or have it rarely. Nonetheless, at least with my N5 the Tylt does make it warmer than other chargers - 40-45c - and a combination of the list above will trip off the overheating warning. I suspect that this is not limited to my particular setup.

Someone posted earlier that Tylt is aware there is a problem and is working on a fix, further lending credence to this theory.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NCguy:
I can do all of the above and it still wont normally get over 110 F. I didn't add any additional factors other than those you mentioned when it overheated twice at 130 F +

Eliminating those factors will lower the normal charging temp at least 10 F but it won't stop the random 130 F overheating. The only exception may by landscape charging which I haven't extensively tested because I'm not too fond of it.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] hotleadsingerguy:
I'm not using a Tylt, which is why I probably won't have the issue. I don't know why people keep assuming I'm using a Tylt.

I use Daydream when it's charging almost all the time. I turn the screen off when charging overnight, but I keep it on when charging on my desk at work. It can sit there and charge the entire time I'm at work and not have an issue (with the screen on the entire time). I charge in both portrait and landscape (depends what I'm doing).

My phone is in a Neo Hybrid (spigen), and has been since I got it.

Either way, the issue is the Tylt.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NCguy:
The reason I assumed tylt is that, to my knowledge, the tylt is the only one that overheats and the only device worth mentioning that's related to this problem.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] hotleadsingerguy:
Well then then topic should reflect that...since the topic is about Qi wireless charging, as a whole, causing the issue and people trying to figure it out.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ixian:
We can't change the topic but if it really bugs you PM the OP. Threads evolve; it happens, don't rely on the first post/topic for the most up to date info.

The Tylt has the highest power spec of any wireless Qi charger I know of and three coils as opposed to one or two. This lets it charge much faster and be far less finicky about placement with the apparent side effect of overheating the N5 under certain conditions. As far as I know other Qi chargers don't have overheating problems including with the N5.

The Tylt VU is an awesome, if expensive charger and they are supposedly working on a fix of some sort for the N5. It'll probably involve an RMA and I'm guessing it means the N5 won't charge as fast on it because the only thing I can think of they can do is detect the metal disks that the N5 uses for alignment on magnetic chargers and lower the power output as a result.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] charesa39:
Welp. Unfortunately, it looks like I can be added to the list of those who have been "burned" :cool: by the Tylt Vu. I've been using two different ones for about two weeks now with no issues at all. The hottest my N5 would ever get would be around 37C (but it would usually hover around 34-35C). I've been keeping an eye on the battery temp since reading all these horror stories of overheating. Tonight, it was charging fine when I picked my phone up to check a text and mess around for a couple minutes. When I put it back on, it was probably around 37-38C or so. I was sitting next to it and touched the screen to check the temp, and it felt REALLY hot (only about 5-10 minutes after setting the phone back down to charge). So I took it off and the battery temp was showing 49.5C with "health" saying "overheating". I always make sure the screen is turned off after putting it on the charger, so I know it wasn't in daydream or anything. Kinda freaked me out. I love these chargers, but my faith in leaving them unattended while charging is now shaky at best.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NCguy:
Mine actually hit 56C. Hang on, a fix is coming. Try a tasker script to check for battery overheating and alert you by ringing or something similar. Its at least some peace of mind.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Mythos123:
damn, and I just ordered the Tylt VU for my nexus 5!

is it confirmed that they're working on a fix?

and how comes that only some are having overheating issues and not all of us?
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NCguy:
Tech support told me in an email that a fix was almost ready. All will probably have the problem with the N5 without the fix. It can take from one day to more than 3 or 4 months to strike. There is nothing you can do to avoid it. :(
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] BinkXDA:
What kind of fix is this? I assume this will only be fixed in newer Vus—existing Vus will still have the broken behavior? Do you have some formal or informal information that I can put verbatim in the OP at http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2571188 ?
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NCguy:
I don't have anything more as of yet. Their tech support is responsive. I would contact them to get the official word on how this will affect existing users.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Mythos123:
I've got somewhat of a response from their cs:

"Thank you for contacting TYLT customer support. It’s actually normal for the charger and phone to warm up a bit as long as it’s not to the point where you can’t touch it. You can go ahead and try it and if it becomes unbearably hot then we will gladly provide a refund for you if you like.

Thanks,

Richard Sumian

Customer Care Specialist"

---------------------------------------

"For clarification, do I have up to 30 calendar days from the time I recieve the package to open it and try it out and if having issues return it back?

Best regards,"

---------------------------------------

"Yes that is correct but if it goes past that a few weeks or so it’s ok we will still provide you with a refund if your not satisfied.

Thank you."
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] BinkXDA:
No mention of a fix here.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Mythos123:
no direct acknowledgement of a fix, neither did he deny it though.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NCguy:
This is not consistent with what they told me. I may now go ahead and post it. I don't like doing that but something is wrong here. When may I ask did you actually receive this?
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Mythos123:
nothing wrong with being transparent I think.

I got this a couple of hours ago.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] charesa39:
I emailed them this morning about it overheating on me last night, and am still waiting to hear back...:mad:
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] as0423:
I have two of these chargers. Once I bought through T-Mobile and one that I bought directly from Tylt's website. At first both of mine were overheating my N5. But lately I've noticed that one isn't doing it as much. The battery temp will stay below 100 degrees. But the other overheats my phone every time I use it. The battery temp will easily get up above 110 degrees within like 15 minutes. I emailed customer service about this problem on Dec 21st. and haven't heard anything back. I figured with the holidays and stuff I'd try to be patient and wait for a response...but now I'm getting annoyed.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] hammester:
My phone feels warm when I take it off the charger so I downloaded GSam battery monitor. I monitored the battery last night and when I took the phone off the charger it felt warm on the back near the camera. However when I looked at GSam it was showing that the battery was only 27C. Any idea how that is possible when the phone felt warm?
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] E.Loewen:
My Tylt Vu has been overheating my Nexus 5 for the past week. It overheats every time I charge the phone in portrait position, it heats up over 45C and stops charging, But if I charge the phone in landscape position it won't overheat. I saw some posts about how Daydream might affect it, so I charged the phone with it on and then with it off, there wasn't any difference, it still overheated while in portrait. I have a second Vu due to arrive tomorrow, I ordered it before I experienced the overheating. I hope I have better luck with the new one. I just sent an email to Tylt's customer service, maybe they'll send me a replacement.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] markdapimp:
Portrait mode has the 3 coils underneath landscape has only one coil underneath the middle of the phone so that might be the reason is all the coils are activated instead of the QI standard of 1 transmitting coil
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mabru2001:
Here's my trick to not having heat issues and still charge in portrait. Set the phone down on the tylt in landscape wait a second for it to start charging, then rotate the phone without removing it from the pad. I have been doing it this way for a few weeks now and I have not had anymore issues.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] charesa39:
You may be on to something. I tried this last night, and my battery didn't really get any hotter than 31.5 C. Granted, it was only down to 90% when I put it on. However, it would normally still heat up to around 34-35 C. I'm assuming the reason is because when you do it this way, it only activates the bottom coil since the phone is originally in landscape mode.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NCguy:
When I try that I can't get the light not to flash as its rotated in the tylt. I assume it's resetting the tylt when the light goes out and back on again.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Mr. Sprinkles:
On the flip side of this, I've been able to get it to reliably overheat by placing the phone on the tylt (in portrait) 3/4" above the bottom ledge and slowly lowering it (not too fast or it'll switch coils). Not sure what this proves... Guess it confirms that activating the upper coil will cause the metal in N5 to heat while still appearing to charge the phone normally, meanwhile your phone is becoming lava.

EDIT:

Guys, this post was in no way intended to be a solution to the problem. I was simply confirming my theory that the upper coil can heat the phone if for some reason most of the energy is directed to it. I'm fairly certain being careful about how you place your phone in the tylt is NOT going to prevent it from overheating. I think the problem with the tylt and the N5 is firmware related.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NCguy:
If you can do this "reliably" then just maybe you have solved the random nature of the main overheat issue. I would think, as rarely as it occurs, that is highly possible that people are inadvertently docking their N5s in the manner you describe without realizing that doing it in this manner triggers the overheating. I think its entirely possible that my two incidents may have possibly occurred just this way.

If this can be verified by others than we very well may be able to prevent many future incidents by simply getting the word out. Hope I'm not sounding too enthusiastic here but this seems like a potential game changer to me.

UPDATE: It certainly is verifiable. I just tried it and it only took about 15 mins to overheat the battery.

EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS POST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO COOK YOUR N5.

Mr. Sprinkles way to go, you nailed it!
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Mr. Sprinkles:
I'm not sure if how you place the phone on the tylt is the source of the problem though. It would be kind of hard to inadvertently dock it this way, you have to be pretty slow and deliberate about it.

I was thinking more along the lines of a firmware issue with the tylt's charging chip being the source of the problem. Especially since it continues to charge even after the N5 has stopped accepting a charge because it's overheating. That says to me that there's a communication problem.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NCguy:
You are probably correct but my tylt is on my nightstand and I'm constantly "feeling" around in the dark to get it docked. I'm feeling pretty good about the odds of this causing my two (now 3) overheats.
[Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] CorneliousJD:
My Vu just came in the mail, it's on the charger now for about an hour, a LITTLE warm but nothing to be concerned about. I'll leave it on over night and report back.